When the idea of moving to Thailand first came up, and we found out we would get two trips home a year (but didn’t actually have to go home…we could go anywhere we wanted), one of the first things we decided is that we would definitely go to Australia! We managed to do that this April for a week while the kids were on break from school for Songkran and Rick had the week off of work for a facility shut-down. We left Friday, April 17th, and headed for Sydney, and had a GREAT time down under!
We stayed in Sydney right at the Circular Quay harbor. It was a two minute walk from our hotel to the harbor, the Sydney Harbour bridge, and the Sydney Opera House! It was like walking through a post card! We did so much, it’s hard to list it all! Not only was Sydney beautiful, with lots to see and do, but there was a real bonus we hadn’t counted on…it was awesome to get out of Asia for a week! Don’t get me wrong, we really like Thailand. But it was SO nice to speak the same language as everyone around you, be able to read street signs, turn on the radio and hear music you know being played by DJs who spoke in English, shopping in stores and finding lots of what you are used to finding at home, enjoying a very clean clean city, and simply not standing out at all! (I’ve mentioned how the Thais love our kids because they are blonde and shiny??? They are constantly being touched, talked to, petted, and photographed by the Thais. In Australia, no one even noticed us!) It was funny, too, that staying right in the same hotel as us were two families that live here in Nichada, the same community where we live in Thailand! (One was our neighbors….we didn’t even know they were heading to Australia!) We also found that though all the sightseeing things we did were really reasonably priced, that food was outrageously expensive! We couldn’t eat at McDonald’s without dropping at least $60 (American) and one night, dinner at a Chinese restaurant was over $150!!!! OUCH!
We started our week out by heading out in our rental car to the Blue Mountains right outside of Sydney (by the way, LOVE the GPS we have….we had automatic directions to anywhere we needed to go!) The mountains are called “Blue” because the oils released by the Eucalyptus trees make it look like there is a blue mist over all the mountains. The area actually reminded us a bit of Sedona – similar red rock formations, forest, etc. We saw “The Three Sisters” which is a rock formation which legend has it is actually three sisters. Their father was magical and to protect them from an evil being nearby when he had to go out one day, he turned them into rocks using his magic bone. He then was out hunting and ran into the evil being, so turned himself into a bird to get away. Unfortunately, he dropped his magic bone when he did and to this day, he is still flying around searching for it so that he can turn his daughters back into humans. We also walked through the rain forest by the Three Sisters, and road a really neat “railroad” (really, a rail car on cables) at Katoomba that is said to be the steepest in the world, right down the mountain to the rainforest below.
Another day we went to the Featherdale Wildlife Park outside of Sydney. We had a blast petting the wandering wallabies, kangaroos and koala bears there! You could feed the wallabies and kangaroos as they just hopped around you, and pet and get your picture taken with the koalas (couldn’t hold them, though –too bad!) They had lots of other neat animals native to Australia there, too, like wombats, the Tasmanian Devil, and dingoes!
We spent lots of time riding the ferry boats around Sydney Harbor and were able to get great views of the Sydney Harbour bridge, the Sydney Opera House, and the beautiful homes and city that are just built all around the harbour. We also took the ferry to the aquarium one day, and to the Marine museum where we got to explore an old navy vessel and submarine and board a very old sailboat. One day we went to the PowerHouse museum in Sydney, too, and saw some neat stuff there!
Another fun outing was going hiking in the Ku-ring-gai Chase national park just north of Sydney. It’s right on the coast, but much of it is up higher, with cliffs down to the water and lots of small beaches and inlets there. It was really beautiful, with very scenic little bays and inlets full of sailboats. A big attraction at this specific park was the Aborigine engravings in one area. We hiked to them and took a look…the kids got a kick out of seeing the wallabies and kangaroos carved into the rock and the people that had been etched in so long long ago! We also thought we could hike up to a pass and then take a path down to the beach, but two hours later, after passing a group who were hiking up from the beach that told us a) it was a steep hike down and b) there were leeches on the way, we decided to just enjoy the scenic view from where we were! :)
Yet another day we headed out to Bondi Beach! It was really neat to see the surfers there and all the people out sunbathing. A few of you have already gotten a laugh at our expense as we’ve told you how surprised we were to see quite a few topless young ladies (not the 50 year old, wrinkled, brown, sunburned Europeans we see on Thai beaches) on the beach….we really and truly didn’t know it was a topless beach! Really! Fortunately, the kids were so entranced by the surfers and then by the Nickolodean event going on featuring SpongeBob on the beach, they didn’t notice anyone missing clothes or ask any questions at all!
Mixed in with all of those outings, we also managed to walk through some of the Botanical Garden right by the Opera House, hang out at the Opera House, itself (didn’t take the tour…it was more than an hour and we didn’t think the kids would hold up!), walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, walk through “The Rocks” which is the historical district of Sydney, buy some opals (the girls were really excited about their silver kangaroo charms with an opal in the middle!), and see a couple of Aboriginals playing their Didgeradoos right at Circular Quay.
For all that we saw and did in Australia, we only saw a tiny bit of the country! We definitely hope to head back again some day and check out the Great Barrier Reef, as well as maybe some other areas like Perth or Melbourne!
We have so many pictures, they are just grouped by location below.
One of the highlights of this month has been the Father Daughter dance that Rick and Caroline and Leah went to! The dance is sponsored by the Girl Guides of Thailand (sister organization to Girl Scouts of America…both girls are in the Girl Guides) and is quite the formal event, held downtown at one of the very nice hotels on Sukhumvit, one of the main roads through Bangkok. As you can see, both Rick and the girls are all very dressed up, and the girls hit the beauty salon before hand to have their hair and nails done, too! They headed out with Leah’s best friend, Jeanre, and her dad, Juan (while Jeanre’s mom, Melinda, and I took Tim, Nate, and Ruan, Jeanre’s brother, for dinner and bowling!) The girls (and Rick) danced and ate all night long, and Caroline was heard saying, “This is the best party I’ve ever been to!”
